McD's Short out Motion or Cheat article

It didn’t take longer than a week or two for the idea to proliferate across the league.

Early in the second quarter of their Week 1 game against the Los Angeles Chargers, Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel called a short out motion to set up a 28-yard catch for receiver Tyreek Hill.

The motion element of the play was new to many, a truncated version of a longer-developing pre-snap jet motion that features a player running behind and across the formation before he bursts upfield at the snap. This short motion sent Hill outward — not inside or across — after a signal from the quarterback. He then turned to run vertically at the snap of the ball instead of having to first get across the formation, sprinting about 15 yards downfield before breaking inward for the catch in the middle of the field.

At the end of the 2023 season, some version of the short out motion was in the playbooks of most, if not all, teams that frequently utilized pre-snap motion. “We call it ‘cheat’ because it’s cheating,” Shanahan said in September. “It’s cool to get ’em running sideways, and still hit it vertically.”

The Dolphins’ passing attack is predicated on timing, and the elite speed possessed by both Hill and fellow receiver Jaylen Waddle means even deeper route concepts have quick-throw potential. Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s average time to throw last season was league-fastest at 2.36 seconds, according to Next Gen Stats, yet Miami’s offense ranked second in pass yards per attempt (8.3).

Defenses worked to contain the Dolphins’ explosive passing attack in different ways. Some tried jamming Hill off the line to disrupt or delay his timing or using other techniques to try to move receivers off their route patterns and landmarks. Some teams put a wide, hard-to-navigate shell over the defensive backfield and hoped they could harass Tagovailoa with only four pass rushers or force him to take shorter completions under that shell.